NetSquared recently followed up with the N2Y3 Featured Projects to develop these short case studies, with the goal to expand the knowledgebase of best practices for applying social media in the nonprofit context. We interviewed participants from the N2Y3 Featured Project teams to gain a better understanding of the way they used social media to increase their reach and carry out their missions. We are very happy to bring you their stories!

Today's spotlight: Ushahidi!

Project Details:

• Name of Organization: Ushahidi, Inc
• URL: www.ushahidi.com
• Location: Worldwide, but based in Orlando, FL

Project Description:

The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Their goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response.

Social media tool or tactic used:

Mobile phones

How was it used?

Ushahidi, which means ''testimony'' in Swahili, is a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi's roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis.

Outcome:

Ushahidi created and deployed the platform in about 3 days to be used by ordinary Kenyans, allowing them to report incidents of violence (or peace) happening around them. The tool was used quite extensively. A Harvard Humanitarian Initiative analytical report showed that Ushahidi was used by people outside of the normal areas that media was covering.

Lessons learned:

• The press does not have a big enough footprint to report all incidents and/or needs in a given area.
• Citizens are willing to act as pseudo-journalists by reporting incidents.
• NGOs aren't equipped with the right web and mobile tools to meet crisis needs.
• Even though volunteers build websites to help track situations (like Ushahidi), it can take up to 2-7 days to get it going and wastes valuable time early warning response time.
• There is rarely a centralized point for citizens, concerned outsiders, NGOs and governments to report, see and find data on a crisis as it is happening.
• News organizations are happy to promote and direct the public towards websites that help the people in need.
• It is easier to build web applications than mobile applications
• History has shown, in Kenya as well as other crisis events like hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami in Asia, that it's usually concerned technologists who build custom tools for each situation. These tools take time to build and tend to miss the first couple days of the crisis.
• Detailed mapping is difficult in developing nations as the geo-location data is lacking.

For more information:

• See the full list of N2Y3 Featured Projects here.    
• Read all of the N2Y3 Case Studies as they are published.

The work to create this case study series was funded by a grant from the Packard Foundation.